`Non-Profit' Columbia University's Assets Increased By $800 Million In 2005

According to the Form 990 filed by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York for the year beginning July 1, 2004 and ending June 30, 2005, Columbia University claims to be a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) “public charity.” Yet between July 1, 2004 and June 30, 2005, Columbia University’s total earnings of $3.1 billion exceeded its total expenses of nearly $2.6 billion by over $500 million.

From its corporate stock and bonds portfolio of over $2.3 billion, for instance, Columbia University earned over $94.7 million in dividends and interest during this period; and, between July 2004 and June 2005, Columbia’s net rental income exceeded $20 million. An additional $495 million was gained from Columbia’s sale of assets during this period. But despite selling some of its assets for cash, between July 2004 and June 2005 the value of “non-profit” Columbia University’s remaining net assets jumped from $6.1 billion to $6.9 billion.

Between June 30, 2005 and June 30, 2006, Columbia earned another $154 million in dividends and interest from its portfolio, which now included $2.7 billion in hedge funds, $763 million in foreign stocks and bonds and $541 million in U.S. equities, according to a September 13, 2006 audit by PriceWaterhouse Cooper. The value of “non-profit” Columbia University’s net assets also jumped another $900 million to $7.8 billion between June 2005 and June 2006, according to the September 13, 2006 report of PriceWaterhouseCooper.

Next: “Non-Profit” Columbia University Paid Professor $3.6 Million Annual Salary in 2005

"Prisoner In Clinton" (for David Gilbert)

(chorus)
Oh, people locked in jobs
Or locked in middle-class minds
Oh, people locked in sects
Since when is love a crime?

(verses)
There’s a prisoner in Clinton in Upstate New York
The Murdoch press, it tried him
The judge wouldn’t let him talk
Like John Brown at Harper’s Ferry
He put his life on the line
To fight to free the slaves, since when is that a crime? (chorus)

There’s a prisoner in Clinton who resisted their brutal war
Who was with you on their campus
Who never forgot the poor
Like John Brown at Harper’s Ferry
He emerged from the Underground
To fight to free the slaves and bring the System down. (chorus)

There’s a prisoner in Clinton, his sentence is our shame
Betrayed by those who realize
That the guilty smeared his name
The ones who sat out the Sixties
Alone came to his aid
His case got lost in dogma, though he fought to free the slaves. (chorus)

There’s a prisoner in Clinton separated from the woman he loves
While she’s tried before the judge
That sentenced her husband
What kind of law is this
That deals with us all this way?
And convenes an all-white jury to put Black rebels away. [chorus)

There’s a prisoner in Clinton whom the brutes labeled “terrorist”
But no civilians were killed
By the prisoner now locked up
A prisoner of war
Obvious to you and me
And like Lolita Lebron and the rest, people now wish him free. (chorus)

The Prisoner In Clinton protest folk song was originally titled Prisoner In Auburn and was written in the early 1980s when David Gilbert www.prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/davidgilbert/ was imprisoned in Auburn State Prison. Since this protest folk song was written, Columbia SDS founder Gilbert has continued to serve time at Attica State Prison, at Comstock State Prison and at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, where he is still imprisoned in 2007.

To listen to the Prisoner In Clinton, you can click on the following music site links:

http://www.last.fm/music/Bob+A.+Feldman/Biographical+Folk+Songs/Prisoner+in+Auburn+%28for+David+Gilbert%29

http://www.mp3.com/artist/bobafeldman/songs/

Next: “Non-Profit” Columbia University’s Assets Increased By $800 Million in 2005

1968 Columbia Student Strike Leader Dave Gilbert: A 1985 Interview--Part 3

The following interview was put together by an exchange of letters from December of 1984 through February of 1985 and through six hours of face-to-face discussion with 1968 Columbia Student Strike Leader David Gilbert in Auburn Prison in New York State on January 27, 1985. Gilbert www.prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/davidgilbert/ is still a U.S. political prisoner in 2007 and is currently imprisoned at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York. This 1985 interview first appeared in the “Broadway” section of the Columbia Daily Spectator on April 2, 1985.

What about the demand for land and independence for a Black nation? A lot of people find that hard to imagine.
David Gilbert: Well, they may be at this point, but it’s certainly not harder to imagine than European settlers coming here and taking over a whole continent from the Native Americans, importing millions of Africans as slaves, conquering half of Mexico. There have been sweeping changes before in history. There can and will be sweeping changes on the side of justice.

I am a supporter of the national liberation position. That position holds that Blacks or New Afrikans have been so systematically oppressed as a people and that white supremacy is so deeply embedded in America that the only route to complete freedom is through independence, through a national liberation struggle.

Did October 20th show that armed struggle can’t work in the U.S.?
Gilbert: Not at all. You have to understand that revolution is not like an instant pancake mix—you know, three easy steps, just follow the instructions on the back of the package. Revolution is a very complex and difficult process. Setbacks will occur. That’s not to excuse mistakes; they must be analyzed and overturned. But, if the general direction is righteous, the movement collectively can learn and advance from setbacks.

There is a very important history and continuity of armed struggle for Black liberation and for Puerto Rican independence. In the past two years [1983-1985] there has also been a very positive development of anti-imperialist actions here in relationship to Central America and South Africa. Armed struggle isn’t a substitute for mass activism, but it can play a leading role in showing the nature and the vulnerability of the enemy. It is essential to forging the ability for waging the protracted struggle ahead of us.

Who is in prison and what are the causes of crime?
Gilbert: That’s a big and complex issue. There are a couple of generalizations that I can make. The biggest common denominator on who ends up in prison is people from poor background. Prison is a tool of repression against those rebellious and unruly elements among the colonized peoples “Black, Puerto Rican, Native Americans, Mexicans” and those among the poorest whites. Here, the population seems to be about 40 to 45 percent Black and 35 percent Latino. And it is very, very rare for someone with money to go to jail.

The other main generalization is that the worst you can say about prisoners is that they tend to apply the values that predominate in capitalist society to their own socio-economic situation.

In the months of October and November 1984, there were three different sets of sensationalized arrests of revolutionaries. In a pre-dawn raid, 8 New Afrikan activists were rounded up by hundreds of New York Police and FBI agents. On November 4th five activists with alleged connections to the Melville Jackson unit and the United Freedom Front were arrested in the Cleveland area. Then on November 30th Susan Rosenberg [who was eventually pardoned in 2001] and Tim Blunk [who was released in the 1990s] were arrested in New Jersey. What are your feelings and assessment of the series of arrests?
Gilbert: First, my love and strong solidarity goes out to any under attack by the state in this way. I know it can be intense and also that people of principle will stand strong. I definitely hope that all revolutionaries being sought by the police remain free and that a resistance grows and flourishes.

I don’t know exactly how all the various individuals define themselves politically and I certainly don’t want to speak for them. Actually, it is important that the means are developed for such comrades to have a louder voice and broader dialogue. Beyond the hardships involved, the situation reveals that we are not just dealing with a few “crazy” individuals, as the media would have us believe. We are talking about real movements, committed to fighting imperialism, with real roots in history and, more importantly, a very crucial potential for the future.

How do you define the movement people now in prison? What should be done about their situation?
Gilbert: There are a range of people now in prison in the U.S. for political reasons: the prisoners of war from the national liberation struggles, anti-imperialist resistance fighters, Grand Jury resisters, draft resisters, busted sanctuary workers. Real justice means freeing all those imprisoned for fighting against oppression. Until that is achieved, there should be recognition of our political statuses and commensurate treatment under United Nations guidelines.

I would urge people reading this to build support for and to demand political status and ultimate release for all captive revolutionaries. This is not only to aid the individuals involved but even more importantly to build the consciousness of a need for a fighting movement against this cruel and blood drenched imperialism.

Sometimes when you talk it sounds as though you think revolution is imminent. Many people consider the idea of revolution in the U.S. farfetched to say the least. Some would say that, whatever the validity of your goals, you are on a quixotic quest.
Gilbert: I’m sure to those who lived in ancient Rome, or under the Egyptian Pharaohs, or in the reign of the Ming Dynasty, those empires looked eternal also. The U.S. empire will fall like all empires before it.

You see, U.S. imperialism seems invincibly powerful, but the sources of its great strength are also the basis of its ultimate weakness. The U.S. rakes in fabulous wealth from Third World countries around the world. But in an era of national liberation, the U.S. will increasingly find its military might over-extended and drained around the globe.

Its economic empire is also based on taking over the land and labor of whole peoples: Native Americans, Blacks, Mexicanos. But these internally colonized people, especially in the context of a U.S. military power over-extended abroad, will develop strong national liberation struggles within the borders.

Within the oppressor nation (i.e. among white Americans) there is an important class contradiction, as well as the oppression of women. The rulers have been able to submerge class conflict with the wealth and power extracted from oppressed nations. That basis will be breaking down, and we will be dealing with conditions of severe economic dislocation and unjust wars.

Well, this all is perhaps too schematic. We’re not trying to write an essay here. The point is that this powerful empire has been built on giant social contradictions which are beginning to crack open.

Well, what do you think Columbia and Barnard students should be doing today [in 1985]?
Gilbert: I think the most dynamic feature right now [in 1985] is the government’s mobilization for war in Central America and the need to stop it. To really stop such imperialist wars, we are going to also have to deal with fundamental structures within the U.S.: internal colonialism and racism, class rule, male supremacy.

On a broader level I want to appeal to students to get back in touch with a basic humanism. The Reagan reign is a rallying call to a terrible cynicism and callousness. But, you know, we can’t feel very full of good about our own self-worth and humanity if we’re denying it for everyone else. Our outlook and commitment must relate to the conditions and aspirations of the vast majority of human kind—the oppressed. If you honestly look at the systematic violence of social conditions and analyze the structures and powers enforcing that…Well, I think that the only fully humane conclusion is revolutionary.” (end of interview)

(Columbia Daily Spectator 4/2/85)

Next: Prisoner In Clinton lyrics

1968 Columbia Student Strike Leader Dave Gilbert: A 1985 Interview--Part 2

The following interview was put together by an exchange of letters from December of 1984 through February of 1985 and through six hours of face-to-face discussion with 1968 Columbia Student Strike Leader David Gilbert in Auburn Prison in New York State on January 27, 1985. Gilbert www.prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/davidgilbert/ is still a U.S. political prisoner in 2007 and is currently imprisoned at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York. This 1985 interview first appeared in the “Broadway” section of the Columbia Daily Spectator on April 2, 1985.

Tell me something about the people who were charged with you.
David Gilbert: We are all people who have fought for human rights and against the tyranny of this system all our adult lives. Sekou Odinga www.prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/sekou-odinga/ and Kuwasi Balagoon [who died in Auburn Prison, New York on December 13, 1986] were part of the Panther 21 case. (In April 1969 the police charged 21 New York Black Panthers with a giant conspiracy to commit bombings. After a lengthy trial, a jury acquitted them all of charges. But the arrests and the drain on resources, along with other government attacks, had decimated the New York Black Panther chapter). Judith Clark, Kathy Boudin [who was released on parole in August 2003], and I all got involved in the Civil Rights Movement in the early ‘60s and the anti-war movement of the mid-‘60s. We’ve been anti-imperialist activists ever since.

Many people I talk to have broad movement sympathies from the Sixties, but such people found your refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the courts to be a very, well, outlandish position and perhaps needlessly self-sacrificing.
Gilbert: I think that is a sign of the repressive power of the courts, you know, that it does seem so outlandish for us to state openly and honestly how we view them. If you study who goes to jail and who doesn’t it becomes crystal clear that the courts definitely aren’t about justice and equality. For example, in North Carolina, Ku Klux Klanners gunned down five anti-Klan demonstrators in front of T.V. cameras; they never served a day for those cold-blooded murders. On the other hand, Black Panther leader Geronimo Pratt [ who was finally released in the late 1990s] has done some 13 years [as of 1985] on a life sentence despite evidence in FBI files that proves his innocence.

Kathy Boudin mounted a legal defense and eventually made a plea bargain for 20 years to life. How do you evaluate this?
Gilbert: Of course her sentence, in terms of how the legal system usually works, was incredibly harsh. It’s one sign, as were the sentences the rest of us got, of just how politically motivated the courts were in this case. Even going through the legal procedure and plea bargaining, she got a life sentence for a first conviction and on a felony murder (i.e., indirect involvement). Meanwhile, a gang of white teenagers stomped to death Black transit worker Willie Turks, who was unarmed. One of these thugs got a manslaughter conviction, two others got misdemeanors: that’s it. Or, D.A. Morgenthau gave 8 of 11 cops who beat a handcuffed Michael Stewart to death immunity from possible murder charges to testify at a Grand Jury. Later the same D.A. wouldn’t give the Black youths whom Bernhard Goetz shot in the back immunity, and Goetz was cleared of all attempted murder and assault charges.

Were you, Judy and Kathy part of the Weather Underground Organization?
Gilbert: Historically, we came out of the Weather Underground. In the early Seventies the WUO represented a very positive trend of militancy against imperialism and alliance with national liberation struggles—particularly Viet Nam and Black liberation. Large numbers of white youth identified with that militancy, spirit and direction. But the WUO also had serious problems and eventually played out the same basic history of the white left in general: an abandonment of solidarity with the national liberation struggles and a retreat from militancy.

Were there mistakes involved in October 20th?
Gilbert: Definitely. In response to criticisms and struggle, Judy and I tried to analyze some of the problems from the vantage point of white anti-imperialist freedom fighters. I don’t think this is the place to go into detail, many issues are still being grappled with. But broadly, there is the error of interventionism, sort of a pretense of being special or “exceptional” white individuals acting within the New Afrikan Independence Movement, without taking real responsibility to build our movement. Also there was too much of a belief that military action by small groups itself could spur a political movement. (end of part 2)

(Columbia Daily Spectator 4/2/85)
Next: 1968 Columbia Student Strike Leader Dave Gilbert: A 1985 Interview—Part 3

1968 Columbia Student Strike Leader Dave Gilbert: A 1985 Interview--Part 1

The following interview was put together by an exchange of letters from December of 1984 through February of 1985 and through six hours of face-to-face discussion with 1968 Columbia Student Strike Leader David Gilbert in Auburn Prison in New York State on January 27, 1985. Gilbert ( www.prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/davidgilbert/ ) is still a U.S. political prisoner in 2007 and is currently imprisoned at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York. This 1985 interview first appeared in the “Broadway” section of the Columbia Daily Spectator on April 2, 1985.

On October 6, 1983, you were sentenced to a minimum of 75 years and a maximum of life in prison. How do you feel about facing life in prison?
David Gilbert: I certainly don’t like being in prison. But it would be worse if I had lost my commitment to fight a system which is such an incredible destroyer of human life and dignity. As for the 75 years, well imperialism isn’t going to last that long. Nor do I think that I will spend my natural life in prison. A revolutionary can be killed in or outside, but if we are talking about 30 or 40 years time—very important political changes, even revolutionary changes are bound to take place over that time span.

The people charged with the October 20, 1981 “Brink’s Robbery” were labeled in the media as “terrorists” and “cold-blooded killers.” How do you define yourself?
Gilbert: It makes sense that the police agencies and establishment media would label us this way. Any system of tyranny must discredit those who build resistance to it, and must try to separate such revolutionaries from the people who suffer under the system. Actually, the media charges turn reality on its head; propagate the big lie. This government and the business interests it serves are the great cold-blooded killers and terrorists of the world. When you grasp the reality of all the people who die of hunger, disease, abuse, and the wholesale terror against people’s movements around the world, then the humane response is to find ways to fight U.S. imperialism as effectively as possible.

What, in your view, was the October 20th action all about?
Gilbert: It was an attempted expropriation. That means taking money from those who amassed wealth by exploiting the people and using that money to finance the resistance. Every revolution has had to use expropriations as a method of finance. You’re just not going to get donations from the Ford or Rockefeller Foundations.

This particular expropriation was under the leadership of the Black Liberation Army [BLA] with white revolutionaries participating in alliance with them. The BLA communiqué after the action said that the funds had been intended to build the army, and for nationalist programs, especially for the youth, in the Black community.

What was the day of capture like for you? Were you abused?
Gilbert: The cops were in a rage. They’re used to just rolling over people without anyone fighting back. They tried to make me talk and beat me off and on for about 3 hours. Then they stuck the barrel of a shotgun into my neck telling me to talk. Later the “bad cop” came in to tell each of us that we were going to get the chair; he was followed by the “good cop”—in this case an FBI agent—who said that the first one who ratted would get a big break.

What was that like for you?
Gilbert: It really helps to know that you’re fighting for a just cause and that there is no way you’re ever going to talk; that takes a lot of the internal tension out of the situation.

While I was beaten and Judy Clark had been knocked down, torture was used on two New Afrikan [Black] men. There is a difference between brutality and torture; the latter involves a systematic and more or less scientific infliction of pain. They broke Sam Brown’s neck in two places and then denied him the needed surgery for 11 weeks—until after he had turned informer. That can all be documented by medical records. Sekou Odinga www.prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/sekou-odinga/ , captured in Queens on October 23, 1981, walked into the police station without a scratch. He was taken out to three months in the hospital including intravenous feeding. The cops systematically worked on his pancreas, put cigarettes out on his body, and other things. Of course Sekou never wavered.

Many people say that they can sympathize with your goals but they abhor your tactics.
Gilbert: Well, I really wish there were a way to defeat imperialism without the pain and bloodshed. Our generation tried to “shake the moral conscience of America” in the Sixties. I think the clear lesson from Viet Nam, from the bloody overthrow of Allende in Chile, from the COINTELPRO campaigns against the Black movement here and the criminal attacks on Nicaragua today [in 1985] is that you have to be able to fight and ultimately defeat imperialism’s force and violence to achieve any real change.

But what about the deaths that day? Two policemen and a Brink’s guard were killed. Some social activists feel that no goal justifies the taking of a human life.
Gilbert: First, to be clear, the purpose of an expropriation is not to hurt or punish the individual police or guards. The goal is to get away as quietly and cleanly as possible with funds for the struggle. The story of the combatants charging out shooting at the Brink’s guard is a pure propaganda creation. In more private moments, the FBI analysts know and even state that the consistent practice of the BLA was not to come out shooting but to try to disarm the guards. The only fire by revolutionaries that day was in response to a clear threat of fire.

People have been conditioned to be sensitive to certain types of deaths but not others. When a policeman is killed we are bombarded with the images of a human tragedy. But the police shootings of Third World people (and occasionally poor whites) are every day events, are almost always treated as routine and acceptable. Today the New York City police are outraged that there is even this one second degree manslaughter charge for their shotgunning 66-year-old Eleanor Bumpurs. The cops just never do time for their violence against the people.

Okay, social violence far exceeds the cost of any revolution to end it. But does that mean anything goes? Isn’t there a danger of becoming like the oppressor?
Gilbert: There is all the difference in the world between reactionary violence and revolutionary violence. Imperialism’s violence is terroristic in that it is usually directed against large numbers of people, especially civilian populations; torture is a standard weapons; a main goal is to terrorize those who might otherwise resist; the ultimate purpose is to maintain intolerable conditions of exploitation and social suffering. Revolutionary violence is the opposite; it must be very strategic and focused on mobilizing the oppressed and breaking the repressive apparatus of the state; we must set very clear standards that express the humanism of the struggle.

What was the specific political position you took at trial?
Gilbert: Kuwasi Balagoon [who died in Auburn Prison, New York on December 13, 1986] and Sekou Odinga took the position of prisoners of war, as fighters in the Black Liberation struggle. They argued that the U.S. has colonized New Afrikan people. The U.S. colonial courts have no legitimate jurisdiction over New Afrikans. There is an internationally recognized right to fight colonial and racist regimes.

Judy Clark [who is still imprisoned at Bedford Hills Prison in New York] and I took the position of anti-imperialists, fighting in solidarity with the Black Liberation Struggle. We recognize that U.S. imperialism is a criminal and anti-human system, and we couldn’t accept the legitimacy of its courts. (end of part 1)

(Columbia Daily Spectator 4/2/85)
Next: 1968 Columbia Student Strike Leader Dave Gilbert: A 1985 Interview—Part 2

Nader's 2007 Critique of Hillary Clinton's Political Record

Long-time U.S. consumer advocate Ralph Nader provided U.S. voters with the following 2007 critique of 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s recent political record as a U.S. Senator in his “In The Public Interest” column of June 18, 2007 that was posted on the www.nader.org site:

“…She has not supported the renegotiation of NAFTA and WTO which the U.S. can force by utilizing the Treaties’ 6 month notice of withdrawal from each of these autocratic systems of transnational governance and secret courts known as NAFTA and WTO….

“As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, she has not challenged the many GAO documented boondoggle military contracts…

“Whether the causes are wasteful, corrupt military contracts or generally the corporate crime wave from Enron to Wall Street, Senator Clinton has not been there in the Congress to advance comprehensive corporate crime legislation…

“Nor has she taken on the hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare—subsidies, giveaways, handouts and bailouts for big business—that consume the contributions of millions of small taxpayers.

“Even in New York City, have you heard Senator Clinton object to taxpayer-funded corporate sports stadiums, while health clinics, schools, libraries and public works decay for lack of public investment? Tax dollars for entertainment are ok by her.

“Some of her paucity of candor is not going unnoticed, however. In explaining why she voted for George Bush’s Iraq War resolution in 2002, she said she believed that it called for an attempted diplomatic solution. There were no words in that resolution to support that belief. She is a lawyer. She also knows that an amendment by Senator Carl Levin, a fellow Democrat, demanded just such a prior diplomatic effort. She voted against the Levin proposal.

“Still, Hillary, with Bill right there, is the frontrunner for the Democratic Party’s nomination. The money from commercial interests, which the Clintons have favored and coddled for years, is pouring into her campaign coffers.

“So she travels around the country with her twofer strategy – pandering to powerful audiences and flattering gatherings of Democratic voters. She has watched Bill’s lack of political fortitude win elections in this two-party, elected dictatorship against the hapless Republicans. Why should she be any different?If she wins the primary and the November elections the country will get another kind of twofer in the White House. Here they’ll go again.”

Next: 1968 Columbia Student Strike Leader Dave Gilbert: A 1985 Interview—Part 1

Peggy Seeger: A 1996 Interview--Part 3

Since the 1950s, Peggy Seeger (http://www.pegseeger.com/) has been performing before audiences in the United States and Britain. During this period she has recorded over 14 solo albums and many joint albums. After living in England between 1959 and 1994, Seeger moved back to the USA and lived in Asheville, North Carolina until early 2006. Following is part 3 of a 1996 interview with Seeger.

As far as the festivals you’ve been performing at in the Nineties. Is there any difference between the audiences and the performers, compared to the Eighties? In what people are singing about? What response you get?
Peggy Seeger: I’m not much of an authority on what’s happening in America. I really haven’t been here long enough. Ewan MacColl and I didn’t do festivals. Because we didn’t like the “stop-start,” “stop-start” thing that goes on in festivals. I compare it to greyhound racing. You know, the gun goes and you have 5 minutes to do your bit and that’s it. Generally, I prefer concerts. I’ve been doing festivals because I think it’s an important discipline to have. And, probably apart from anything else, it gives me a chance to hear other performers, which I love to do.

I am very impressed at what’s going on at a lot of the festivals. There’s a lot of young people. Quite a lot of children. And it’s an audience with a very catholic taste. They seem to be able to take almost anything that you give them.

Have they heard of you? The U.S. media doesn’t seem to give you much airtime?
Seeger: No. The U.S. media has not given me much airtime. I hope to remedy that. I don’t know that I’m popular stuff. My songs have a lot of words. And some of them take a lot of thinking about. I think I’m probably not “sensational” enough. I’m not “smooth” enough. I don’t know. There’s something that I’m “not enough of.”

What about public television? I know whenever they’ve needed to raise funds, they invite a lot of the folksingers from the Sixties who allegedly are excluded from the commercial stations because they have “no commercial appeal?”
Seeger: I don’t know that I’m excluded. When I do sing on television and radio I seem to get a lot of appreciation. There’s a lot of us out there, you know. There’s a lot of people vying for these spots. I’ve been on “Prairie Home Companion.” I’ve been on “Mountain Stage.”

I was out of the country for so long. And also my name was tied to someone else’s, as part of a duo. And people get used to saying “Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger.” And when Ewan MacColl dies—I actually met people who said they didn’t know I was still alive. You know, I’m only 61 [in 1996].

So, it’s a very fickle audience. But there are a lot of people who have followed the stuff that I have done over the last 30 years. And I get quite a lot of nice pats on the back when I go to festivals and concerts. And I’m very happy getting concerts, as I have been doing. I’m getting a reasonable amount of work. And I’m learning also that I can teach. Which is something that I wasn’t aware of until Ewan MacColl died. Since then I’ve been teaching songwriting and been talking about the position of women in Anglo-American folksongs. And been giving seminars on ballad-singing and on what makes folks songs so powerful, and all these kinds of things.

Is that why you’re living in North Carolina [in 1996]?
Seeger: Oh, I just picked that out of a hat. Because I wanted a place that was in the South, that was in the mountains, that had good music and warm weather. And that wasn’t too near the rest of my family. Because I just wanted to see what would happen if I landed in a place by myself, without any connections.

If people want to get your cassettes or CDs, where would they go about getting them?
Seeger: My web page is open now—you might find it of interest: http://www.pegseeger.com/ The best place…just go into a record store.

One of my records I like best is really hard to get. And you can really, I suppose, only get that from me. Which is one called Almost Commercially Viable. I made that with my friend Irene, when we were “No Spring Chickens.” Made it in England and never managed to get it sold to anybody over here yet. Mind you, I haven’t pushed hard. That’s one that I really like. Probably Internet, Worldwide Web.

In terms of the future. What’s your sense? What’s going to be happening in the United States and in England?
Seeger: England I can’t say very much about. Because I haven’t really been in contact with what’s been happening in England since ’89. I took a couple of years out to write a couple of books and I hardly sang at all in England.

What books?
Seeger: I finished a book of my own songs—140 of them. And a book of Ewan MacColl’s songs—200 of those.

Some readers might not have heard much of Ewan MacColl for some of the reasons you indicated, like blacklisting. From an artistic point of view, what is going to be his place in history?
Seeger: Well, in England he is regarded as one of the architects of the British Folk Revival. There was Alan Lomax, Ewan MacColl and A.L. Lloyd: who were largely responsible for starting the English revival as we know it. And he was one of the main singers and theorists, teachers, and critics in that. He was a superb unaccompanied singer. And he was a person who opened up the English and Scottish repertoire of songs. I would say he probably has recorded about 100 albums. And many of them were songs that he just literally revived out of books. Because if they died, nobody knew them anymore.

He was a theorist of the revival, in that he worked out ways by which singers who were, say, brought up in different musical traditions, could approach singing of folk songs without ruining them. He also kind of kept the British Revival’s nose to the grindstone, as far as understanding the relationship between folk song and the working-class.

So he was like a Woody Guthrie, right, for Britain?
Seeger: Kind of.

But what are the differences?
Seeger: He came from the same kind of background as Woody Guthrie did: a working-class man. He was also uneducated, like Woody Guthrie. I would say he was probably a more skilled songwriter than Woody Guthrie. Ewan didn’t write—now this is my personal opinion: I don’t think he wrote any bad songs. And I think Woody Guthrie did. And I think Woody Guthrie wrote some absolutely superb ones. But he also wrote some stinkers. And if Ewan wrote stinkers, he kept them quiet. He was lucky enough to keep them quiet.

Ewan was also in theatre, which Woody wasn’t. He was responsible with his first wife, Joan Littlewood, for forming Britain’s best recognized revolutionary theatre: Theatre Workshop—which in the late 1940s and right through the Fifties was regarded as a pacesetter for activist theatre. He left that to stir-up the folk revival, which he did. And made a lot of enemies.

If you were in England and were in the folk revival and spoke of Ewan MacColl, anybody would have heard of him. He also is known for writing “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” And for writing a number of songs which many people in the folk revival over here think are folk songs. Like “Dirty Old Town.”

Is there an autobiography or biography of him [as of 1996]?
Seeger: There’s an autobiography of him. But it was published in England and then taken out of publication. I’m trying to get it done again. It was never released here. And I’m trying to get it released over here. I will get it done. It’s called Journeyman. And I think it’s a wonderful book. An excellent book.

He wrote plays. And then the two books that I’ve done are kind of historical surveys, telling what was happening at the time when the song was written, making comments about the songs. With discographies and prefaces. Oh, you know, the whole thing. They’re huge books.

Getting back to your own performances. What do you hope to achieve when you perform before a live audience?
Seeger: Oh, I want to entertain them and make them think. I firmly believe that I have a great deal to learn from any audience that I sing for. And the folk revival generally gets an awful lot of really thinking people to it. I would like to, if possible, move them on from where they are and to draw on their experience to move me on. I’m very much invigorated by most of the people that I meet at the concerts that I give.

I suppose you might say I probably appeal more to their thinking faculties then I do to their emotional ones. But I try to make a good combination.

Technically, you’re considered quite skillful compared to most musicians. How did you get so good?
Seeger: Well, I’m not as good as I used to be. Because I have arthritis in my left wrist, which is hampering me rather a lot.
(end of interview)

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